Seven Taiwanese films are among more than 300 films from 75 countries to be screened at this year’s Busan International Film Festival in South Korea, which opened yesterday.
Taiwanese films are performing better each year at international film festivals and are also doing well in the film trade, said Chu Wen-ching (朱文清), head of the Ministry of Culture’s Bureau of Audiovisual and Music Industry Development.
Chu said his bureau has set up a Taiwan pavilion at the festival’s Asian Film Market, where 16 Taiwanese companies are expected to try to sell their films. The Asian Film Market deals with a variety of businesses in the field, from sales of copyrights, investment and production to post-production.
The bureau has also organized a Taiwan Night for Monday that is to be attended by filmmakers, actors and actresses, including Taiwanese-French actress Sandrine Pinna (張榕容) and Taiwanese model and actress Sonia Sui (隋棠).
The seven Taiwanese films to be showcased include Touch of the Light (逆光飛翔) by Chang Rong-ji (張榮吉) and Together (甜‧秘密) by Hsu Chao-jen (許肇任). Both films have been nominated for an award in the festival’s New Currents competition.
Touch of the Light, which stars Pinna, is about a girl who dreams of becoming a dancer and develops a friendship with a blind musician, while Together is about a high-school boy’s observation of people around him who are bothered by love.
Other films include Go Grand-riders (不老騎士), a feature-length documentary by Hua Tien-hau (華天灝) that tells the story of a motorcycle journey around Taiwan by 17 old men, and short film Daily Life (過站) by Chang Chia-yun (張家筠), about a warm day shared by a daughter and mother. Both of these films have been nominated in the festival’s Wide Angle competition.
Meanwhile, 10+10 by Hou Hsiao-hsien (侯孝賢), a collection of 20 five-minute shorts by 20 directors on what they see as the uniqueness of Taiwan, has been selected to be screened in the Window on Asian Cinema section.
Also to be shown in this section are GF*BF (女朋友。男朋友) by Yang Ya-che about the love and friendship between three youngsters who joined the student movements in Taiwan in the 1980s, and a Taiwan-Myanmar co-production titled Poor Folk (窮人‧榴槤‧麻藥‧偷渡客) by Burmese director Midi Z (趙德胤), which depicts the lives of illegal immigrant workers from Myanmar in Thailand.
The 10-day festival is scheduled to run through Oct. 13. It opened last night with the world premiere of Hong Kong thriller Cold War which stars screen veterans Aaron Kwok (郭富城) and Tony Leung Ka-fai (梁家輝).
Taiwan has received more than US$70 million in royalties as of the end of last year from developing the F-16V jet as countries worldwide purchase or upgrade to this popular model, government and military officials said on Saturday. Taiwan funded the development of the F-16V jet and ended up the sole investor as other countries withdrew from the program. Now the F-16V is increasingly popular and countries must pay Taiwan a percentage in royalties when they purchase new F-16V aircraft or upgrade older F-16 models. The next five years are expected to be the peak for these royalties, with Taiwan potentially earning
STAY IN YOUR LANE: As the US and Israel attack Iran, the ministry has warned China not to overstep by including Taiwanese citizens in its evacuation orders The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) yesterday rebuked a statement by China’s embassy in Israel that it would evacuate Taiwanese holders of Chinese travel documents from Israel amid the latter’s escalating conflict with Iran. Tensions have risen across the Middle East in the wake of US and Israeli airstrikes on Iran beginning Saturday. China subsequently issued an evacuation notice for its citizens. In a news release, the Chinese embassy in Israel said holders of “Taiwan compatriot permits (台胞證)” issued to Taiwanese nationals by Chinese authorities for travel to China — could register for evacuation to Egypt. In Taipei, the ministry yesterday said Taiwan
Taiwan is awaiting official notification from the US regarding the status of the Agreement on Reciprocal Trade (ART) after the US Supreme Court ruled US President Donald Trump's global tariffs unconstitutional. Speaking to reporters before a legislative hearing today, Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) said that Taiwan's negotiation team remains focused on ensuring that the bilateral trade deal remains intact despite the legal challenge to Trump's tariff policy. "The US has pledged to notify its trade partners once the subsequent administrative and legal processes are finalized, and that certainly includes Taiwan," Cho said when asked about opposition parties’ doubts that the ART was
If China chose to invade Taiwan tomorrow, it would only have to sever three undersea fiber-optic cable clusters to cause a data blackout, Jason Hsu (許毓仁), a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute and former Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislator, told a US security panel yesterday. In a Taiwan contingency, cable disruption would be one of the earliest preinvasion actions and the signal that escalation had begun, he said, adding that Taiwan’s current cable repair capabilities are insufficient. The US-China Economic and Security Review Commission (USCC) yesterday held a hearing on US-China Competition Under the Sea, with Hsu speaking on
RSS